Bill started working seasonally in Yellowstone in 1972. His roles included customer service, management, and nine years as a Winterkeeper (shoveling snow off Yellowstone hotel roofs to protect them ). He managed to sneak in a National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) semester as a student and three summers teaching courses for NOLS in the Wind Rivers and North Cascades. He climbed Denali with NOLS in 1978. Bill also worked three summers as a backcountry ranger for the National Park Service: two in Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve in Alaska and one in Yellowstone, patrolling the southeast arm of Yellowstone Lake by canoe and sea kayak.

In His Own Words

The Job
"I maintain a place on the web where employers in great places and candidates who would like to work there can hook up. Mine is not really an outdoor job these days, though we help others find them. The location and flexibility of the job allow one to get spoiled by this greater Yellowstone environment."

How He Got There
"Working as a seasonal in Yellowstone led to the rest of my career. Falling for the place, the lifestyle, and the people who come to these places leads to connections, ideas, and opportunities that I would not otherwise have been exposed to.

"I spent my winters snowed in in Yellowstone from 1976 to 1985, and my summers out of a backpack or a boat from 1978 to 1984. I worked my way up to full-time year-round employment in Yellowstone as Director of Business Operations for a concessionaire in the park. Among other things, my duties included recruiting seasonal staff.

"I went through my mid-life crisis in the form of an Environmental MBA program at the University of Washington in Seattle. I saw the web in an IS class in February of 1995 and my experience recruiting seasonal staff in Yellowstone meshed with the emerging web to give birth to Cool Works. In June of 1995, I started working full time on Cool Works. We launched that November."

How to Get His Job
"Do what it takes to get close to people that are doing what you believe you would like to do. Learn more about it, make some connections, volunteer, figure out if it's for you, get the education you need, then hope to be in the right place at the right time. Be willing to pay some dues to work your way into things. Aim high, but realize that some of these positions are in short supply and high demand. Be prepared to re-adjust as things play out."

Pros
"Realizing that Cool Works is allowing people to expand their horizons in the way that coming to Yellowstone expanded mine. It's pretty satisfying to hear from folks who are working in Denali, the Grand Canyon, or the Tetons because of our work."

Cons
"Is there a down side? There's a down side to everything."

Do you think there's any danger in your passion becoming your career?
"Working for NOLS was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done. Even so, two courses per summer was enough for me. As great as it was I needed to get away from it and be on my own after that amazing group work in the mountains. I truly respect the instructors that do that year-round, for years. I was unbelievably hungry for the experience again the next summer and now, years later, would love to find a way to get back to some of it.

Great things happened with that kind of time in the hills, and the pure group dynamics that bubble up when folks are separated from their possessions and culture and immersed in a small roving community that demands a high level of cooperation."

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